


so close in the dark

by onceuponanevilangel



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/F, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), all i know is angie martinelli deserves better and i'm here to give it to her, i don't understand nor do i care how the time travel is supposed to work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-19 04:29:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19968058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceuponanevilangel/pseuds/onceuponanevilangel
Summary: 'Peggy has spent the better part of the last thirty years learning to read Angie like her favorite book, and she knows the next question a split second before Angie whispers it like she isn’t sure she wants Peggy to hear.“So where does that leave me?”'//post-Endgame; Angie and Peggy have a lot to talk about.





	so close in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from 'The London Air Raids' by Vian Izak
> 
> I started this months ago in a fit of post-endgame passion and then randomly got hit with the urge to finish it, so tada I guess. Technically takes place post-endgame, but also I don’t know nor do i care how any of the rules work, so there’s that. Enjoy!

“So.”

Angie’s voice is soft and she’s not looking at Peggy, but rather at a loose thread on the duvet that she’s twisting around and around and around her finger tight enough to leave a red corkscrew indentation in her skin when she lets it go.

Peggy’s sitting at her vanity, halfway through taking her makeup off, but she stops and looks at Angie’s reflection in the mirror. “So?” she asks.

“He’s back,” Angie says simply.

Her words hang there in the air for a moment, not because they require elaboration, but because Peggy doesn’t know what to say.

She supposes the obvious thing is “yes.” Yes, she had been called into the office that morning on her day off, of all days, to deal with a situation that Howard had only been able to describe over the phone as ‘impossible.’ Yes, she had walked in to find one Steven Grant Rogers sitting on a chair outside of her office, fidgeting with his hands like he was a child waiting to be chewed out by the principal, but then he had looked up at her, stood up to meet her, looked at her with those blue eyes that she would recognize anywhere, and she felt her blood run cold as if she was looking at a ghost. Yes,

In short: yes, he’s back, and Peggy isn’t sure what to do with that information.

“Are you okay?” Angie asks.

Peggy hasn’t even noticed how long she’s been silent for. She turns around on her vanity stool to face Angie, but language doesn’t seem to be working for her at the moment. She can’t lie, and she doesn’t know what Angie wants to hear, so she settles for redirection.

“How did you find out?”

“Howard called,” Angie says. “After you left. Said officially it was nothing and I probably shouldn’t say anything to anyone unless I wanted to end up a redacted footnote at the end of the incident report, but he thought I deserved to know.”

“Howard,” Peggy murmurs like a curse under her breath. Of course it was Howard.

“Would you have told me if he hadn’t?” Angie asks. She looks up to meet Peggy’s eyes for the first time, but her fingers are still working the thread on the duvet. Her face is unreadable, and Peggy doesn’t know the right answer, so she settles for what she’s pretty sure is the truth.

“Eventually.”

Angie narrows her eyes like she doesn’t quite believe her, and Peggy sighs.

“We still don’t even know what’s really happened, and besides, there are all sorts of boxes to tick and hoops to jump through before –”

“Does he still love you?”

Peggy’s mouth opens, closes again, and she sighs, which is all the answer Angie seems to need.

“Do you love him?”

That one Peggy _does_ know the answer to.

“I’m not sure.” She pauses. “I did once, very much. But that was a long time ago.”

“But you’re glad he’s back.”

“Yes,” Peggy says simply. She wants to qualify her answer more, wants to tell Angie that after the initial shock had worn off, she had poured herself a scotch in her office and gone over every report and photograph and classified briefing related to the years-long search that SHIELD had conducted for Captain America. She wants to explain that this is far more than an old flame appearing at the other end of a bar, and she’s not sure how to even _begin_ to make sense of the multitude of emotions swirling within her.

But the truth is that yes, she is glad that Steve is back, and right now, Angie deserves the truth.

Silence stretches in the space between them, and Angie gives the thread a sudden tug. It snaps off the duvet, and Angie looks down at the sudden loss of tension, and lets the thread unwind itself and fall from her finger.

Peggy has spent the better part of the last thirty years learning to read Angie like her favorite book, and she knows the next question a split second before Angie whispers it like she isn’t sure she wants Peggy to hear.

“So where does that leave me?”

Peggy isn’t finished at her vanity, but she drops her cloth on the tabletop and crosses the room to kneel at the side of the bed so she can still Angie’s fidgeting hands and meet her downcast eyes.

“That leaves you right here with me,” Peggy says. “And there’s nowhere in the world that I would rather you be.”

Angie disguises a watery sigh with a hint of a laugh, and a ghost of a smile plays at the edges of her lips.

“You sure about that?” she asks. “I’m not exactly Captain America.”

“No,” Peggy says. “But neither am I, and I think we’ve done well enough for each other so far, haven’t we?”’

This time, Angie does laugh.

“Better shut up and kiss me quick before you change your mind,” she says.

“There’s not a chance of that, but I suppose it’s better to be safe than sorry,” Peggy says. Her lips twitch as she catches Angie’s, and that’s all she needs to be sure.


End file.
